Historic Kent Town pub to pour again, flanked by new housing towers
The Premier says a city pub that’s been a long-time target for development will reopen with hundreds of neighbouring homes. While the Liberals make a million-dollar pledge for health in the Barossa.
After failed development attempts and a decade of sitting vacant, Kent Town’s Royal Hotel site will see two apartment towers rise but “the pub stays”, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced today.
Malinauskas joined housing minister Nick Champion and developer Daniel Palumbo at the site’s showroom that is currently inside the old pub on Wednesday to announce that construction would start this year.
The state heritage-listed pub was one of Adelaide’s most popular in the mid-90s and was now expected to reopen by 2029 – after a 15-level ‘Hills tower’ and a 16-level city tower were built alongside, which would take two and a half years, Palumbo said.
Palumbo said the initial focus was the tower construction, but then the current added-on entryways to the pub, which is not part of its state heritage quality, will be removed, so there’s distance between the pub and the apartments.
The site will include 235 on-site car parks for the 211 apartments, Housing Minister Nick Champion brushing off concerns about traffic congestion at the corner of the busy city thoroughfare.
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“This is on a high frequency bus route, and it’s also very easy to walk into town so what you find with these developments around the park lands…people use their car less, and they use public transport and walk more, and that’s a good thing,” Champion said.
“They still need a place to park their car because Adelaide loves having a car,” he said.
The Palumbo plans were approved in April last year but was not the first development vision for the park lands adjacent property.
The State Planning Commission’s assessment panel previously approved an initial application in May 2023 lodged by Victorian developer Flagship Property Holdings.
Flagship also would have built two towers, but did not get over the line, with Palumbo winning out with its redesign, including more parking spaces and an adaptive reuse plan for the pub.
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The announcement came ahead of Premier Peter Malinauskas outlining his housing policy at today’s CEDA Vision for South Australia event.
“All these projects individually don’t solve a housing supply crisis, but one after the other, after the other gets us the fastest housing growth in the nation which we now have,” Malinauskas said.
While the Premier has housing top of mind today, Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn was in the Barossa Valley announcing a $350 million hospital for the region if the Liberal party was elected in March.
Hurn said she had seen options for sites in Nuriootpa, and she wanted to see a new hospital as close to that area as possible, noting that 25,000 new residents were expected in Concordia alone in the Barossa Valley’s North.
When asked if she would commit to having the hospital completed by the end of her first term, Hurn said, “I’d love that to be the case but I don’t know a hospital that’s been built in four years”.
“I want to see it up and running as soon as possible. I think the first thing that we need to do, given the government hasn’t purchased the land, is purchase the land,” Hurn said.
“This new hospital has long been talked about, and it needs to be delivered for our community and the next generation.
“An extensive final business plan has already gone through independent body Infrastructure SA and is sitting with the Labor Government for a capital investment decision, but no action has been taken and the land hasn’t been purchased – obviously that’s disappointing.”
When asked about Hurn’s commitment this morning, the Premier said he had not seen the Liberal policy and could not comment on it.
He did not say whether he would commit to a Barossa Hospital, but said “we’ll have our own things to say” and that his party had “already announced a lot of health policy”.
